She is so sweet, so very fine.
Pure succulent honey drips
from her moist layers,
my face covered
with chopped nuts,
*******,
her waves,
her trembling,
overwhelming,
I could eat her forever.

Ross was a fullblooded
bronze-skinned buddy
from the Navajo Nation.
He was a diehard Okie,
and a machine gunner,
carried the M-sixty
with twenty pounds
of extra belted-ammo.
He was a big guy,
had brown deep-set eyes,
high cheeks and
not a single hair
on his burly body,
but some high and tight
pitch bristles on his head.
He had a weakness.
Pure Straight Whiskey.
Whenever he had too much,
he was an F5 tornado,
a wild Tasmanian devil,
to be reckoned with.
I remember when he had
his front top teeth knocked out
by some civilian bouncers
at a local drinking establishment.
He kicked the **** out of
three huge muscle guys.
It was him versus them.
A regular melee.
Ross won.
Once on a Saturday night,
drunk as skunks,
we made an illegal turn
on the Interstate south of Denver.
We ended up flying down the highway
with four hundred feet of wire
attached to wooden poles,
sent sparks flying everywhere.
I never saw a guy laugh
so hard in all my life.
He ****** himself hysterically.
We gave Ross his first Native American name.
We were out in the field,
just hanging out
in battle gear,
shooting the ****
around our APC.
We called him Prancing Moose,
Moose for short.
He loved it when
we called him that,
gave us a toothless grin.
He was a warrior to us.
In another time and place,
he might have been a Chief.
He was courageous,
fearless and
a good friend
to have in your side.
From time to time,
I think about him,
and pray he's okay,
still alive.
He was our blood brother.
We were in hell together.
I miss him, too.

The first time I met Big Jim
was in my shop.
He walked in with a burning sage bundle,
waving it in circles above his head.
He told us he was smudging the place,
said it was sort of an
ancient cleansing ritual.
My partner told him he couldn't do that,
that it would ***** the customers,
probably wasn't good for business,
that he should put it out.
Jim just stood there
with the smoldering smudge bundle
in the middle of the store
looking dumbfounded
and sad.
I knew I was going to like the guy.

We wanted to start a program
and call it
climbing for the rez.
We hoped
to find serious candidates,
young people
who possessed the blood
of their great ancestors.
We had planned
to harness,
to rekindle
the warrior spirit
on high mountaintops
covered with ice age glaciers.
The lessons learned
to reach the summit
would last a lifetime.
It was an excellent plan,
a unique idea,
to truly help
fellow humans in need.
But we found no money.
It seemed no one,
not a single corporate entity
was interested
in us
helping
potential warriors
find their way.
We had to scrub the idea...

Eagleman taught me things about his people.
He showed me the pipe,
he talked about the way,
the good red road,
and the four directions.
I was sitting in a sweat
when I learned
about Mother Earth.
It was fascinating,
felt so real and magical
at the same time.
I learned
about animal spirits,
the sundance,
burning sage,
and why his people
danced like ghosts.
But he didn't teach me everything.
He said some things
will always be a mystery.
He said the Great Spirit
wanted it that way.
He told me if one
listened hard enough
to the fierce winds
hugging the plains,
you can hear the pain
of his kindred,
millions of souls
crying in harmony
to the beat of the drum.

I'm a white guy,
he called me Wasicu,
but I have two eagle feathers,
both with dyed
porcupine quills.
They were sacred gifts,
given to me
by my red guy friend,
his name was Big Jim,
he was a vet,
he had scars
from being pierced,
and owned
an eagle bone whistle.